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HISTORY  MADE  BY 
PLAIN  MEN 


BY 

LOUIS  PELZER 


REPRINTED  FROM  THE  JULY  1913  NUMBER 
OF  THE  IOWA  JOURNAL  OF  HISTORY  AND 
POLITICS  PUBLISHED  AT  IOWA  CITY  IOWA  BY 
THE  STATE  HISTORICAL  SOCIETY  OF  IOWA 


OF  Tht 

::l¥£fiSITY  OF  ILLINOIS. 


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HISTORY  MADE  BY  PLAIN  MEN 


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HISTORY  MADE  BY  PLAIN  MEN 


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During  the  comparatively  short  era  of  man’s  recorded 
history  his  story  has  been  told  from  various  view-points:' 
some  writers  have  approached  the  subject  with  the  con-  • 
viction  that  Religion  is  the  key  to  History;  another  insists 
that  civilization  has  moved  along  with  the  drum  and  the 
trumpet ;  a  third  that  the  State  is  the  great  central  fact  in 
history,  agreeing  with  Freeman  that  history  is  past  politics ; 
Mr.  Seligman  has  written  on  the  economic  interpretation  of 
history;1  while  others  have  emphasized  the  biographical 
element  —  the  Alexanders,  the  Charlemagnes,  the  Bis- 
marcks,  or  the  Gladstones. 

This  paper  is  an  attempt  to  examine  another  force  which 
permeates  all  the  others,  which  is  less  tangible  but  omni¬ 
present.  This  is  the  part  played  by  Plain  Men  —  those 
individuals  not  endowed  with  greatness  or  with  power, 
whose  spheres  of  operation  are  small  and  whose  careers  are 
not  perpetuated  in  marble,  in  the  national  archives,  or  in 
the  sifted  products  of  historical  study. 

Hero-worship  is  a  part  of  our  moral  nature  which  impels 
us  to  render  our  tributes  of  admiration  and  praise  to  those 
famous  processions  of  statesmen,  priests,  poets,  soldiers, 
and  inventors  that  have  passed  by  and  on.  Their  achieve¬ 
ments  survive  them  in  the  laws,  the  morals,  or  the  institu¬ 
tions  which  they  were  conspicuous  in  establishing  or 
adorning.  Pageants,  holidays,  celebrations,  and  monu¬ 
ments  reveal  this  trait  which  is  one  of  the  qualities  which 
makes  for  a  noble  personal  or  national  welfare.2 


1  Seligman ’s  The  Economic  Interpretation  of  History  in  the  Political  Science 
Quarterly,  Vol.  XVI,  p.  612. 

2  Storrs ’s  Contributions  made  to  our  National  Development  by  Plain  Men  in 
the  Annual  Report  of  the  American  Historical  Association,  1896,  Vol.  I,  pp. 
37-63. 


3 


4 


HISTORY  MADE  BY  PLAIN  MEN 


Interest  in  great  men  would  alone  be  sufficient  to  per¬ 
petuate  their  names.  Their  thoughts,  deeds,  and  example 
are  such  as  to  inspire,  long  after  the  actor  has  passed 
away.  Of  Admiral  Nelson  Mr.  Robert  Southey  has  said:3 
“He  has  left  us  ....  a  name,  and  an  example, 
which  are  at  this  hour  inspiring  hundreds  of  the  youth  of 
England:  a  name  which  is  our  pride,  and  an  example 
which  will  continue  to  be  our  shield  and  our  strength. 
Thus  it  is  that  the  spirits  of  the  great  and  the  wise  con¬ 
tinue  to  live  and  to  act  after  them :  verifying,  in  this  sense, 
the  language  of  the  old  mythologist : 

‘For  gods  they  are,  through  high  Jove’s  counsels  good, 
Haunting  the  earth,  the  guardians  of  mankind.  ’  ’  ’ 

Hence  let  no  one  attempt  to  disparage  the  achievements 
of  those  personages  who  have  been  in  the  fore  of  achieve¬ 
ment  nor  to  take  from  them  the  credit  which  is  justly  theirs. 
“Great  men,”  Carlyle  has  said,  “taken  up  in  any  way  are 
profitable  company.” 

But  beyond  question  our  homage  and  recognition  should 
not  stop  here  but  should  extend  likewise  to  the  quiet,  un¬ 
adorned  and  oft  unheralded  achievements  of  that  unnum¬ 
bered,  unnamed  army  of  world’s  workers  designated  here 
as  Plain  Men.  These  with  fewer  opportunities  and  with 
feebler  powers  have  labored  with  industry,  patience,  and 
not  infrequently  with  great  effect  in  advancing  the  world’s 
progress. 

The  mighty  currents  of  history  are  after  all  formed  by 
the  great  body  of  the  people.  The  movers  of  the  world  are 
not  Atlas  and  Archimedes  but  the  units  of  mankind.  The 
good  rulers  influence  the  varied  interests  of  society  some¬ 
what  as  the  mountains  give  direction  to  the  wind.  States¬ 
men,  generals,  priests,  and  rulers  —  these  are  the  creatures 

3  Southey’s  The  Life  of  Nelson,  p.  326.  Edited  by  David  Hannay.  London: 
William  Heinemann,  1897. 


HISTORY  MADE  BY  PLAIN  MEN 


5 


rather  than  the  creators  of  civilization.4  Gladstone  repre¬ 
sents  England;  Napoleon,  France;  Luther  is  Germany,  and 
Illinois  gave  us  Abraham  Lincoln. 

Perhaps  the  most  striking  trait  of  the  modern  scientific 
method,  suggests  a  modern  historian,  is  an  appreciation  of 
the  transcendent  importance  of  the  small,  the  inconspicu¬ 
ous,  and  the  obscure.  The  historians  of  the  old  school  nei¬ 
ther  saw  nor  had  any  interest  in  the  common  routine  and 
humdrum  of  daily  life.  They  were  attracted  to  parliaments, 
kings,  wars,  treaties,  territorial  changes,  and  nobles  rather 
than  to  the  great  mass  of  the  plain  people  —  how  they  lived, 
what  they  thought,  how  they  worked  and  how  their  infinite 
number  of  units  furnished  the  momentum  for  progress. 

With  these  historians,  continues  this  writer,  “It  was  the 
startling  and  exceptional  that  caught  their  attention  and 
which  they  found  recorded  in  the  sources  on  which  they 
depended.  They  were  like  a  geologist  who  should  deal  only 
with  earthquakes  and  volcanoes,  or,  better  still,  a  zoologist, 
who  should  have  no  use  for  anything  smaller  than  an  ele¬ 
phant  or  less  romantic  in  its  habits  than  a  phoenix  or 
basilisk.”5 

Less  calmly  but  perhaps  more  picturesquely  another 
writer  has  stated  it : 

But  a  little  while  ago  it  was  assumed  that  a  nation  which  had  not 
waded  through  centuries  of  blood  had  no  history.  To  our  more 
refined  sensibilities,  pictures  of  battle-field  agonies,  catalogues  of 
death  wounds,  and  barbarous  atrocities  are  less  congenial  —  I  will 
not  say  less  profitable  —  than  to  the  ruder  tastes  of  Homer’s  listen¬ 
ers  or  to  the  lover  of  King  Arthur  romances.  Narratives  of  sieges 
and  battles,  of  the  discipline  and  movement  of  armies,  and  of  inter¬ 
national  diplomacies;  biographies  of  ministers  and  generals,  the 
idiosyncracies  of  great  men;  pictures  of  court  intrigues,  dainty 
morsels  of  court  scandals,  recitations  of  the  sayings  of  imbecile 

*  Cf .  Bancroft ’s  Essays  and  Miscellany,  Chapter  V. 

o  Robinson’s  The  New  History,  pp.  48,  49. 


6 


HISTORY  MADE  BY  PLAIN  MEN 


monarchs,  anecdotes  of  princes,  the  opinions  of  counsellors,  or  the 
tortuous  ways  of  political  factions  —  these  are  not  all  of  history.6 

Political  institutions,  rebellions,  and  crusades  are  but  the 
more  visible  manifestations  of  the  undercurrents  of  racial, 
economic,  and  religious  forces.  The  forces  of  history¬ 
making  are  less  tangible  and  more  complex  than  are  those 
in  the  physical  world,  and,  since  formation  and  progress 
are  through  individual  units,  social  evolution  is  slow.  The 
French  Revolution  was  but  the  spectacular  outburst  of 
forces  which  were  deep-seated,  slow,  and  of  long  duration 
in  the  social  structure  of  the  common  people  of  France. 
“Forms  of  government  may  be  radically  changed,”  says  a 
writer  in  Science ,  “but  the  alignment  of  classes,  subordina¬ 
tion,  legal  traditions,  religious,  ethical  and  social  ideals 
still  remain  inevitably  to  nullify  or  to  modify  the  results  of 
the  newly-made  structure  of  government.”7 

Such  a  conception  of  history  —  as  a  study  of  the  social 
physics  of  the  past  —  would  record  the  progress  as  well  as 
the  doings  of  man,  and  would  rescue  the  achievements  and 
the  memoirs  of  the  “not-great”  from  their  undue  sub¬ 
ordination  to  the  abnormal,  the  unusual,  and  the  pictur¬ 
esque. 

In  the  career  of  Gurdon  Saltonstall  Hubbard  is  reflected 
a  segment  of  the  fur-trading  era  in  Illinois.8  For  about 
fifteen  years  this  man  was  an  Indian  trader.  Trading 
houses  were  established ;  trails  were  laid  out ;  the  good  will 
and  friendship  of  the  Indians  were  cultivated;  vast  quan¬ 
tities  of  blankets,  powder,  whiskey,  and  tobacco  were  dis- 

6  Bancroft’s  Essays  and  Miscellany,  p.  79. 

7  Carleton ’s  History-making  Forces  in  the  Popular  Science  Monthly,  Vol. 
LXXI,  pp.  349-354. 

s  This  story  of  the  fur-trading  activities  of  Hubbard  has  been  constructed 
from  The  Autobiography  of  Gurdon  Saltonstall  Hubbard  which  has  been  edited 
with  an  introduction  by  Miss  Caroline  M.  McHvaine,  the  Librarian  of  the 
Chicago  Historical  Society. 


HISTORY  MADE  BY  PLAIN  MEN 


7 


tributed,  and  in  return  the  furs  of  mink,  beaver,  muskrat, 
fox,  ermine,  and  lynx  were  bartered,  canoed  and  portaged 
to  Mackinaw,  the  great  mart  of  the  Upper  Lakes  fur  trade 
and  the  headquarters  of  the  American  Fur  Company.  To 
follow  and  to  witness  some  of  the  activities  of  this  man’s 
career  as  an  Indian  trader,  may  reveal  a  cross-sectional 
view  of  a  vast  business  of  the  early  Middle  West. 

Born  in  old  Vermont  in  1802  and  entering  the  service  of 
the  American  Fur  Company  at  the  age  of  sixteen,  Hub¬ 
bard  illustrated  the  old  saying  that  “Vermont  is  the  most 
glorious  spot  on  the  face  of  this  globe  for  a  man  to  be  born 
in,  provided  he  emigrates  when  he  is  very  young.”9  Near 
Montreal,  Canada,  Hubbard  joined  the  clerks,  boatmen, 
and  hunters  of  the  company,  and  on  May  13,  1818,  with 
canoes  heavily  laden  with  goods  for  the  Indian  trade  and 
to  the  melodies  of  Canadian  boat  songs  the  expedition  be¬ 
gan  its  ascent  of  the  St.  Lawrence. 

Toronto  was  reached  in  about  a  month.  From  there  the 
boats  were  hauled  overland  in  ox-carts  to  Lake  Simcoe  and 
the  journey  then  continued  in  canoes  to  Lake  Huron.  Coast¬ 
ing  the  northern  shore  of  this  great  lake  the  canoes  on  July 
4,  1818,  arrived  at  Mackinaw.  Here  young  Hubbard  first 
saw  the  hosts  of  voyageurs,  clerks,  merchants,  and  officials 
of  that  mammoth  corporation,  the  American  Fur  Company. 

For  a  month  Hubbard  worked  at  counting  great  quan¬ 
tities  of  skins  of  mink,  raccoon,  wild  cat,  fox,  and  lynx, 
which  had  been  collected  by  hundreds  of  traders  and  hunt¬ 
ers  from  the  vast  area  of  the  Great  Lakes  region.  Hunting 
and  trading  expeditions  soon  set  out  for  their  winter  quest 
for  furs  and  young  Hubbard  was  placed  in  a  brigade  des¬ 
tined  for  the  upper  part  of  Illinois. 

This  brigade  of  twelve  boats  left  Mackinaw  on  September 
30,  1818,  and  skirted  the  eastern  shore  of  Lake  Michigan  in 


»  Quoted  in  Johnson’s  Stephen  A.  Douglas:  A  Study  in  American  Politics, 


8 


HISTORY  MADE  BY  PLAIN  MEN 


a  southerly  direction.  In  three  weeks  Hubbard  beheld  Fort 
Dearborn.  Here  for  a  few  days  the  boatmen  rested;  boats 
and  canoes  were  repaired ;  and  preparations  for  the  south¬ 
ward  journey  were  made. 

As  the  expedition  resumed  its  southerly  course  trading 
houses  were  established.  The  first  was  located  near  the 
present  city  of  Hennepin  and  the  next  three  miles  below 
Lake  Peoria.  Paddling  down  the  Illinois  River  and  estab¬ 
lishing  posts  every  sixty  miles  on  that  stream  the  crew 
reached  St.  Louis  on  November  6,  1818.  Here  for  two 
weeks  Hubbard  visited  with  relatives  and  friends  and 
helped  to  stock  the  canoes  with  goods  for  the  Indian  trade 
in  Illinois. 

Hubbard  had  been  placed  in  charge  of  the  trading  house 
near  the  mouth  of  the  Bureau  River.  Here  with  a  band  of 
companion  hunters  he  spent  the  winter  of  1818-1819  and 
lived  upon  raccoon,  bear,  turkey,  swan,  goose,  crane,  and 
duck.  Packs  of  Indian  goods  were  sent  to  the  Sacs  on  Rock 
River  and  to  the  Kickapoos  on  the  Wabash  and  bartered 
for  the  rich  peltries  of  these  regions.  Hunting  trips  also 
added  to  the  stores  of  furs  in  the  trading  house. 

In  March,  1819,  Hubbard’s  crew  commenced  its  toilsome 
return  journey  to  Mackinaw.  Laden  with  the  rich  products 
of  the  season’s  trading  and  hunting  and  manned  by  veteran 
oarsmen  the  canoes  were  paddled  and  portaged  toward  the 
Mecca  of  the  fur  traders.  Other  outfits  from  the  St.  Joseph 
and  the  Calumet  rivers  joined  the  procession  of  boats  which 
were  given  a  hearty  welcome  when  they  arrived  at  Mack¬ 
inaw  in  May,  1819. 

For  five  or  six  weeks  Hubbard  with  about  a  hundred 
others  packed  furs  at  Mackinaw.  Dust  and  moths  were 
removed  from  the  skins,  which  were  then  counted,  stretched, 
pressed,  sorted,  and  invoiced.  Then  the  neatly  packed 
bundles  of  otter,  mink,  beaver,  bear,  or  wolverine  were 


HISTORY  MADE  BY  PLAIN  MEN  9 

transferred  to  boats  destined  for  the  fur  markets  of  the 
East  and  of  Europe. 

The  next  season  Hubbard  spent  at  the  trading  and  hunt¬ 
ing  grounds  on  the  Muskegon  River  in  Michigan,  from 
whence  another  cargo  of  peltries  was  sent  to  Mackinaw.  In 
the  following  season  he  exploited  the  area  of  the  Kala¬ 
mazoo  River  Valley,  being  accompanied  by  three  Canadians 
and  one  Indian. 

Thus  Hubbard  spent  winter  after  winter  in  the  forests 
and  on  the  streams,  and  at  every  spring  returned  to  dis¬ 
charge  his  cargo  at  Mackinaw.  For  some  time  the  Indians 
had  known  him  as  Pa-pa-ma-ta-be  or  the  “Swift  Walker”. 
In  1824  he  was  given  the  general  superintendence  over  the 
trading  houses  of  the  American  Fur  Company  on  the  Illi¬ 
nois  River. 

Between  Fort  Dearborn  and  a  point  about  one  hundred 
and  fifty  miles  south  of  the  present  town  of  Danville  he  laid 
out  a  path  or  road  known  as  “Hubbard’s  Trail”.  On  this 
route  he  established  trading  houses  forty  or  fifty  miles 
apart.  To  these  posts  goods  for  the  Indian  trade  were 
carried  from  Fort  Dearborn  by  pack  horses  and  thus  the 
slow  and  laborious  transportation  by  boat  was  discon¬ 
tinued. 

Annual  visits  to  Mackinaw  continued  and  during  his 
career  as  a  fur-trader  his  total  number  of  trips  to  that  point 
amounted  to  twenty-six.  In  1827  he  was  made  a  special 
partner  of  the  American  Fur  Company  and  in  the  next  year 
bought  out  its  entire  interests  in  Illinois.  For  about  five 
more  years  he  prospered  in  the  business  of  trading  with  the 
Indian  tribes.  But,  after  the  disastrous  defeat  of  the  Sacs 
and  Winnebagoes  in  the  Black  Hawk  War  in  1832,  the 
Indians  were  forced  to  withdraw  from  Illinois  to  the  reser¬ 
vations  beyond  the  Mississippi.  This  event  marks  the  end 
of  the  fur  traffic  in  Illinois. 


10 


HISTORY  MADE  BY  PLAIN  MEN 


Hubbard’s  career,  thus  described,  spans  in  the  main  the 
transition  era  from  fur-trading  to  agriculture  in  Illinois, 
and  exhibits  the  last  stages  of  this  primitive  form  of  barter. 
Furthermore,  his  activities  typify  the  initiative,  the  ag¬ 
gressiveness,  and  the  efficiency  of  the  American  Fur  Com¬ 
pany  in  its  control  of  the  Indian  trade  on  a  large  scale. 

“Just  what  the  American  Fur  Company  meant  to  Illi¬ 
nois”,  declares  a  student  of  Hubbard’s  career,  “it  is  diffi¬ 
cult  for  us  of  the  present  to  realize.  But  when  we  reflect 
that  the  few  white  settlements  sprinkled  here  and  there  in 
the  wilderness  would  have  been  practically  out  of  touch 
with  the  world  save  for  the  river  traffic  carried  on  by  this 
first  of  American  ‘trusts,’  and  when  we  remember  that  the 
Indians  were  held  in  check  not  so  much  by  force  as  by  the 
self-interest  of  trade,  we  conceive  its  import  to  our  fore¬ 
bears,  not  merely  from  the  trade  standpoint,  but  from  the 
human  side  as  well.”10 

Few  people  have  ever  heard  of  Gershom  Flagg,  a  pioneer 
of  Illinois,  whose  career  illustrates  one  of  the  currents  of 
westward  migration  from  New  England  in  the  forepart  of 
the  last  century.11  These  streams  of  migration  starting 
from  the  eastern  seaboard  regions  widened  and  overflowed 
into  the  valleys  of  the  Ohio,  the  Wabash,  the  Illinois,  and 
the  Mississippi.  Gershom  Flagg  never  won  a  battle,  nor 
wrote  a  statute,  nor  sat  in  the  Senate  nor  ran  for  President 
of  the  United  States.  Nevertheless,  in  the  migration  and 
settlement  by  this  man  there  is  typified  that  westerning 
expansion  which  made  possible  the  construction  of  high- 

10  Quoted  from  Miss  Mcllvaine’s  introduction  to  The  Autobiography  of 
Gurdon  Saltonstall  Hubbard,  p.  xi. 

11  For  the  materials  from  which  this  story  of  Gershom  Flagg  has  been  con-  ' 
structed  the  writer  is  indebted  to  the  Pioneer  Letters  of  Gershom  Flagg.  These 
Letters  are  skillfully  edited,  with  introduction  and  notes,  by  Dr.  Solon  J .  Buck 
of  the  University  of  Illinois  and  are  published  in  the  Transactions  of  the 
Illinois  State  Historical  Society,  1910,  pp.  139-183. 


HISTORY  MADE  BY  PLAIN  MEN 


11 


ways,  the  building  of  churches  and  schools,  and  the  found¬ 
ing  of  American  homes  and  Commonwealths.  It  will  repay, 
it  is  believed,  a  few  minutes  time  to  associate  with  such  a 
man  who  was  a  participant,  an  observer,  and  a  describer. 

Eight  hundred  and  ninety-eight  miles  were  covered  by 
this  youth  of  twenty-four  in  the  fall  of  1816  in  the  first 
section  of  his  migration  from  Richland,  Vermont,  to  Spring- 
field,  Ohio.  Reaching  Troy,  New  York,  Flagg  and  his  com¬ 
panion  passed  the  old  Dutch  settlement  of  Schenectady  and 
soon  reached  Utica.  From  the  thirteen-year-old  village  of 
Rochester  their  road  led  to  Niagara  Falls,  Buffalo,  and  then 
along  the  lake  to  the  port  of  Erie.  Pennsylvania  was 
crossed;  and  in  Ohio  the  villages  of  Cadiz,  Cambridge, 
Zanesville,  Lancaster,  Columbus,  and  Urbana  marked  their 
route.  The  trip  had  taken  forty-seven  days  at  the  rate  of 
nineteen  miles  per  day  and  Flagg  explained,  “We  came  a 
roundabout  way  I  suppose  but  I  think  we  took  the  best 
road.” 

Here  in  Champaign  County,  Ohio,  Flagg  remained  for 
several  months.  Families  of  emigrants  were  arriving  from 
New  York,  Vermont,  and  other  States,  penniless  and  with¬ 
out  grain  for  their  worn-out  horses.  “I  believe  Many  peo¬ 
ple  who  come  to  this  Country  are  greatly  disappointed”, 
he  writes  in  one  of  his  letters  to  Vermont.  Hardships  and 
high  prices  were  inducing  not  a  few  families  to  move  on  to 
Indiana  or  Missouri.  “The  good  thing [s]  in  this  Coun¬ 
try”,  he  wrote,  “are  Plenty  of  Grain  which  makes  large  fat 
horses  and  Cattle  Rich  Land  ready  cleared,  some  Whiskey 
plenty  of  feed  for  Cattle,  Plumbs,  Peaches,  Mellons,  Deer, 
Wild  turkies,  Ducks,  Rabits,  quails,  &c  &c  &c,  little  more 
Corn.  The  bad  things  are,  Want  of  Stone,  Want  of  timber 
for  building,  Bad  Water,  which  will  not  Wash  .... 
Bad  Roads,  ignorant  people,  Sick  Milk,  Sick  Wheat,  a  plenty 
of  Ague  near  the  large  streams  Bad  situation  as  to  trade.” 


12 


HISTORY  MADE  BY  PLAIN  MEN 


Again  young  Flagg  looked  to  the  westward  from  whence 
came  reports  of  land  surveys  and  sales,  speculation,  the 
founding  of  towns,  and  mineral  riches.  Describing  the 
stimulation  from  these  rumors,  he  wrote  to  his  mother  in 
Vermont  in  February  of  1818:  “the  Missouri  &  Illinois 
feever  Rages  greatly  in  Ohio,  Kentucky,  &  Tennessee  and 
carries  off  thousand [s] .  When  I  got  to  Ohio  my  Ohio  fee¬ 
ver  began  to  turn  but  I  soon  caught  the  Missouri  feever 
which  is  very  catchin  and  carried  me  off.” 

In  the  summer  of  1817  Flagg  travelled  the  seventy- five 
miles  from  Springfield  to  Cincinnati.  The  Queen  of  the 
West  was  then  a  growing  city  of  over  7000.  Observing 
that  the  government  land  upon  the  Wabash  was  taken  up 
and  that  the  other  Indiana  lands  were  still  held  by  the  tribes 
of  Indians,  he  decided  to  go  on  to  St.  Louis.  In  partnership 
with  another  young  Vermonter  he  next  purchased  a  flat- 
boat  which  they  covered  and  stocked  with  provisions. 
Leaving  the  bustling  city  of  Cincinnati  on  October  19,  1817, 
the  boat  floated  down  the  Ohio  River,  past  the  Falls  of  the 
Ohio  and  the  mouth  of  the  Wabash,  and  reached  Cairo  —  a 
distance  of  645  miles  from  Cincinnati  by  water.  Placing 
the  chests  and  trunks  on  a  keel-boat  bound  for  St.  Louis  the 
two  men  covered  the  remaining  distance  of  174  miles  on 
foot  and  reached  that  city  on  November  19,  1817. 

St.  Louis,  this  young  pioneer  found,  was  a  place  of  thriv¬ 
ing  business  activity.  Brick  and  frame  houses  were  being 
constructed;  printing  offices,  banks,  and  a  steam  sawmill 
were  in  operation ;  corn,  wheat,  potatoes,  beef,  lumber,  and 
brick  were  selling  at  high  prices ;  labor  was  $20  per  month ; 
board  was  $3.50  to  $6.00  per  week  and  town  lots  were  selling 
from  $500  to  $3000  each. 

Twenty-six  miles  east  of  St.  Louis  Flagg  located  264 
acres  of  land  near  what  is  now  Edwardsville  in  the  county 
of  Madison,  Illinois.  Returning  to  the  flourishing  land 


HISTORY  MADE  BY  PLAIN  MEN 


13 


market  at  St.  Louis,  he  was  unable  to  secure  employment  as 
a  government  land  surveyor.  In  the  previous  winter 
(1816-1817)  eighty  surveying  companies  had  monopolized 
this  business  and  had  surveyed  several  millions  of  acres. 
Furthermore,  Flagg  complained  that  the  “Surveyor  Gen¬ 
eral  has  three  or  four  Brothers  with  15  or  20  other  con¬ 
nection  all  surveyors.” 

Here  upon  his  land  this  young  farmer  labored  and  pros¬ 
pered.  Speculation  and  hard  times  came  on  but  the  thrifty 
pioneer  lived  upon  “my  earnings  and  not  upon  my  credit  or 
speculation”.  The  oppressive  heat  of  the  summer  of  1820 
he  describes  in  a  non-terrestrial  term ;  but  in  that  season  he 
plowed  or  broke  more  than  120  acres  of  new  prairie  with 
four  yoke  of  oxen  and  with  a  man  to  drive  them.  Forty 
acres  were  fenced  in  and  a  log  house  was  built.  “We  have 
pretty  tight  times  here,”  he  wrote  the  next  year.  “Most  of 
the  People  are  in  debt  for  Land  and  many  otherwise  more 
than  they  can  posably  pay.”  His  market  report  for  that 
year  is  as  follows:  corn,  12 y2  cents  per  bushel;  wheat,  50 
cents;  flour,  $3.00  to  $3.50  per  barrel;  pork,  $2.50  to  $3.00 
per  barrel ;  and  whiskey,  $.25  per  gallon. 

Political  and  religious  conditions  were  noted  by  this  pio¬ 
neer.  In  1824  he  believed  that  the  majority  of  the  people  in 
Illinois  favored  John  Quincy  Adams  for  President  with 
Clay  as  a  second  choice.  The  next  year  he  states  that  ‘  ‘  our 
political  squables  and  quarrels  have  subsided”  and  that  the 
slavery  question  in  Illinois  had  been  settled  forever.  Re¬ 
ferring  in  1836  to  the  eastern  solicitude  for  the  spiritual 
welfare  of  the  people  in  the  Mississippi  Valley  when  Bible 
societies  and  missionary  enterprises  were  being  projected, 
he  wrote  in  a  tone  of  some  impatience:  “I  do  not  see  but 
the  cause  fl[o]urishes  as  well  here  as  in  other  places  the 
people  here  contribute  freely  for  the  support  of  Preachers 
both  in  money  and  good  living  which  is  the  main  thing.” 


14 


HISTORY  MADE  BY  PLAIN  MEN 


Possessing  a  clear  title  to  270  acres  of  land  in  1821, 
Flagg  continued  to  prosper.  Four  years  later  he  speaks 
of  his  flourishing  orchards  of  peach,  cherry,  and  pear,  be¬ 
sides  several  log  buildings.  In  addition  he  possessed  four 
yoke  of  oxen,  three  good  ploughs,  two  wooden  carts,  sleds, 
a  grindstone,  two  axes,  shovels,  hoes,  etc.  In  June  of  1825 
he  had  purchased  1500  acres  of  valuable  land  for  the  unpaid 
taxes  which  amounted  to  $103.00. 

Confiding  his  financial  rating,  he  wrote  to  his  brother  in 
1821 :  “I  owe  $56  dollars  and  have  due  to  me  $110  from  good 
men  and  have  $34  in  cash  on  hand.  I  have  twelve  shirts  six 
pair  Pantaloons  6  vests  ten  cravats  &  handkerchiefs  two 
round  abouts  4  pair  stocking  two  pair  shoes  one  Coat  in 
Short  I  suppose  my  whole  property  to  be  worth  about  $1500 
in  cash  and  now  I  suppose  I  have  been  particular  enough 
on  that  subject  at  any  rate  I  do  not  wish  any  one  to  see  this 
letter  except  yourself.” 

For  forty  years,  until  his  death  in  1857,  this  man  was  a 
resident  of  Illinois,  and,  as  in  the  case  of  thousands  of 
other  pioneers  his  neighborhood  became  a  reservoir  into 
which  population  from  the  east  filtered.  Of  his  eight 
younger  brothers  and  sisters  five  followed  him  to  Illinois  — 
four  settling  in  Madison  County.  His  sister’s  family  like¬ 
wise  removed  to  Illinois  shortly  after  her  death,  and  as  late 
as  1850  one  of  his  nephews  from  the  East  moved  to  Paw 
Paw,  Illinois.  “The  descendants  of  these  brothers  and 
sisters”,  says  Dr.  Buck,  “are  now  scattered  all  over  the 
United  States  from  Vermont  to  California  and  thus  the 
history  of  this  family  typifies  in  a  way  the  spread  of  the 
American  people  across  the  continent.”12 

In  this  spread  of  population  over  the  continent  the  plain, 
aggressive  Americans  coming  singly,  in  pairs,  in  families 

12  Quotation  from  Buck’s  introduction  to  the  Pioneer  Letters  of  Gershom 
Flagg. 


HISTORY  MADE  BY  PLAIN  MEN 


15 


and  in  colonies  were  the  type  which  transplanted  schools, 
churches,  and  town-meetings.  As  late  as  1880  there  were 
12,588  citizens  in  Michigan  who  were  natives  of  Vermont. 
The  migratory  spirit  of  these  easterners  had  many  years 
before  passed  into  verse : 

Come,  all  ye  Yankee  farmers  who  wish  to  change  your  lot, 
Who’ve  spunk  enough  to  travel  beyond  your  native  spot, 

And  leave  behind  the  village  where  Pa  and  Ma  do  stay, 

Come  follow  me,  and  settle  in  Michigania, — 

Yea,  yea,  yea,  in  Michigania.13 

When  the  first  public  land  sales  began  in  this  State  at 
Burlington  on  November  19,  1838,  land-hungry  settlers 
from  nearly  every  State  in  the  Union  were  there.  The 
Massachusetts  Yankee  was  present  to  seize  any  bargain; 
the  Kentuckian  with  his  soft  southern  accent  mingled  with 
his  brethren  from  South  Carolina,  Virginia,  Maryland,  and 
Tennessee;  large  numbers  were  gathered  from  Illinois, 
Ohio  and  Indiana ;  the  Hadleys  were  registered  from  South 
Carolina;  and  besides  there  was  present  a  considerable 
group  of  settlers  who  had  but  lately  come  from  the  District 
of  Columbia.14 

In  the  staid  records  of  these  land  sales  as  preserved  in 
Washington,  D.  C.  appear  descriptions  of  the  tracts  sold, 
the  prices,  the  date,  and  the  amount  of  sale.  In  the  thou¬ 
sands  of  names  there  recorded  one  can  find  hut  very  few 
names  of  men  whose  constituency  of  acquaintances  or  repu¬ 
tation  was  wider  than  the  neighborhood  or  county  from 
whence  they  had  come.  These  were  plain,  uncelebrated  men 
making  history  that  was  fundamental  in  State-building. 
Though  the  bidding  in  of  a  tract  of  160  acres  and  its  later 
settlement  would  seem  to  be  acts  divorced  from  any  glamor 

is  Quoted  from  Farmer’s  History  of  Detroit  and  Michigan  in  Mathews’s 
The  Expansion  of  New  England,  p.  227. 

uPelzer’s  Augustus  Caesar  Dodge,  pp.  55-61. 


16 


HISTORY  MADE  BY  PLAIN  MEN 


and  romance  they  were  of  the  highest  importance  in  the  life 
of  the  settler.15  To  him  they  meant  a  livelihood,  property, 
security,  and  a  Christian  home. 

It  was  estimated  that  for  the  public  sales  at  Burlington 
between  November,  1838,  and  June,  1840,  ninety  per  cent 
of  the  lands  sold  fell  into  the  hands  of  actual  settlers.  It  is 
perhaps  true  that  nowhere  in  the  history  of  settlement  and 
immigration  can  there  be  found  a  more  democratic  and  a 
sounder  economic  condition  —  a  condition  for  which  these 
plain  settlers  were  the  basis. 

It  is  the  common,  average  man  who  has  furnished  mass 
or  collectivity.  However  great  may  have  been  the  influence 
of  a  dominating  personality  there  are  whole  fields  of  history 
where  such  influence  is  but  slightly  possible ;  as  for  example 
in  customs,  language,  mythology,  and  sometimes  in  law  and 
industry.  Those  designated  as  leaders  must  have  an  under¬ 
standing  of  the  will,  the  feelings,  and  the  vague  ideas  of  the 
social  body  of  common  people.  In  this  wise  strong  person¬ 
alities  can  push  forward  policies  or  creeds  to  a  fuller  clear¬ 
ness  and  a  wider  acceptance.16 

Says  Hegel  in  describing  what  he  calls  the  “World- 
Historical  Individuals”:  “Such  individuals  had  no  con¬ 
sciousness  of  the  general  Idea  they  were  unfolding,  while 
prosecuting  those  aims  of  theirs ;  on  the  contrary,  they  were 
practical,  political  men.  But  at  the  same  time  they  were 
thinking  men,  who  had  an  insight  into  the  requirements  of 
the  time  —  what  was  ripe  for  development .”17 

This  is  but  another  way  of  saying  that  laws  —  moral  and 

15  Cf.  preface  to  Treat’s  The  National  Land  System  1785—1830. 

is  Cf.  Dow’s  Features  of  the  New  History:  Apropos  of  Lamprecht’s 
“Deutsche  Gescliichte’ ’  in  the  American  Historical  Review,  Vol.  Ill,  pp.  431- 
448,  (435). 

n  Hegel’s  Lectures  on  the  Philosophy  of  History  (Translated  by  J.  Sibree, 
1894),  pp.  30,  31. 


HISTORY  MADE  BY  PLAIN  MEN 


17 


statutory  —  to  be  successful  must  have  a  measure  of  accept¬ 
ance  or  approval  from  those  units  which  make  up  the 
masses  of  the  common  people.  As  the  Mississippi  could  not 
be,  were  it  not  for  its  tributaries,  so  Andrew  Jackson’s 
career  would  have  been  impossible  but  for  the  prejudices, 
ideals,  and  strength  which  arose  from  that  stratum  of  soci¬ 
ety  known  as  Western  Democracy. 

It  has  been  stated  that  the  essential  factor  in  the  building 
up  of  the  British  Empire  has  been  the  colonist  rather  than 
the  colonel,  the  settler  rather  than  the  sergeant;  the  men 
who  have  wielded  the  spade  and  trowel  rather  than  the 
sword  and  spear.18  So  in  the  colonization  of  America  it  was 
hy  plain  men  from  England,  Holland,  and  France  that  ideals 
were  transplanted  and  a  new  nation  founded.  And,  it  was 
by  the  hunters,  fur-traders,  tree-fellers,  farmers,  and 
miners  who  swarmed  across  the  Mississippi  River  that  the 
Louisiana  territory  was  won  for  the  United  States  rather 
than  by  the  diplomats  in  Washington  and  Europe.  It  was 
by  the  unsuspected  but  irresistible  powers  of  these  plain 
folk  that  the  Americanization  of  the  Mississippi  Valley  was 
accomplished.19 

The  Middle  West  is  preeminently  the  product  of  the 
plain  people.  “All  through  American  history  democracy 

is  Pollard’s  Factors  in  Modern  History,  p.  239. 

“Yet,  with  few  exceptions,  the  writers  of  history,  until  a  comparatively 
recent  period,  have  written  chiefly  of  wars  and  words,  of  soldiers  and  poli¬ 
ticians,  and  have  neglected  the  matters  of  more  real  moment  to  the  seriously 
interested  student  of  man  —  matters  pertaining  to  his  origin  and  development, 
to  his  daily  life  and  pursuits,  his  migrations  and  colonies,  his  taboos,  cere¬ 
monies,  social  culture,  and  religions.” — Hanna’s  The  Wilderness  Trail,  Vol.  I, 
p.  XIII. 

i»  Cf.  Roosevelt’s  The  Winning  of  the  West  (Standard  Library  Edition), 
Vol.  IV,  pp.  276,  281. 

“The  history  of  the  occupation  of  the  West  is  the  story  of  a  great  pilgrim¬ 
age.  It  is  the  record  of  a  people  always  outstripping  its  leaders  in  wisdom,  in 
energy  and  in  foresight.  A  slave  of  politics,  the  American  citizen  has  none  the 
less  always  proved  himself  greater  than  politics  or  politicians.  ’  ’ —  Hough ’s 
The  Way  to  the  West  (Bobbs-Merrill  Edition,  1903),  p.  2. 


18 


HISTORY  MADE  BY  PLAIN  MEN 


has  been  like  a  trade-wind,  blowing  over  from  the  sunset. 
The  young  States  of  the  Ohio  Valley  led  in  multiplying  the 
number  of  elective  offices,  in  introducing  rapid  rotation  in 
office,  in  submitting  State  constitutions  to  popular  ratifica¬ 
tion.  Class  bulwarks  of  colonial  date  were  thus  pounded  to 
pieces  by  the  surf  of  democratic  sentiment  from  the  West. 
Jeffersonian  and  Jacksonian  Democracy,  Lincoln  Repub¬ 
licanism,  Grangerism,  Populism,  Bryan  Democracy,  Roose¬ 
velt  Republicanism  —  wave  after  wave  has  rolled  seaward, 
loosing  the  East  from  its  Old-World  or  ‘  first-family  ’  or 
‘best-people’  moorings.  Some  of  these  impulses  were 
wrong-headed  and  died  away,  others  prevailed,  and  the  sum 
of  these  successful  Western  initiatives  is  what  we  offer  to 
the  world  as  the  American  political  system.”20 

A  study  and  appreciation  of  the  contributions  made  by 
Plain  Men  is  a  distinct  phase  of  the  newer  history.  It  is  a 
study  of  history  from  its  understructure  and  foundations  to 
its  capitals  and  colonnades.  “The  real  life  of  the  American 
nation  spreads  throughout  forty-eight  commonwealths.  It 
is  lived  in  the  very  commonplaces  of  the  shop,  the  factory, 
the  store,  the  office,  in  the  mine,  and  on  the  farm.  Through 
the  commonwealths  the  life  and  spirit  of  the  nation  are  best 
expressed.  And  every  local  community,  however  humble, 
participates  in  the  formation  and  expression  of  that  life  and 
spirit.”21  And  that  is  the  history  made  by  Plain  Men. 

Louis  Pelzer 

The  State  University  of  Iowa 
Iowa  City 

20  Quoted  from  Ross’s  The  Middle  West  in  The  Century  Magazine,  Vol. 
LXXXIII,  No.  5,  pp.  686-692. 

21  Quoted  from  Shambaugh’s  The  West  and  the  Pioneers  in  the  Wisconsin 
State  Historical  Society  Proceedings,  1910,  pp.  133-145. 


F 


